1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a bait bucket and, more particularly, to a pneumatic bait bucket including an air pump for selectively controlling the water level inside the bucket so that live bait can be easily removed.
2. Prior Art
Bait buckets for carrying live bait are well known in the art. Pails have been used for years to hold a quantity of water containing minnows, leeches and the like, which must be kept in water in order to preserve their greatest usefulness as bait. When live bait is free in the water, however, it can be quite difficult to catch the bait because it can elude one's reach. In addition, it is generally necessary to put at least a hand, and probably a forearm, into the water in order to capture the live bait. This means that one may need to take time to roll up a sleeve so that it does not get wet. Furthermore, because one's hand and forearm generally do get wet when the bait is retrieved from the bucket, one may feel a need to dry off after retrieving bait from the bucket, especially in cold and windy weather.
In order to provide a bait bucket which does not require the user to capture live bait while the bait is swimming in water, a number of bait buckets have been proposed. Such prior art bait buckets may include an outer housing and an inner housing having water passage means for allowing water to pass into and out of the interior of the inner housing. Thus, the inner housing can be removed from the outer housing leaving the water behind but retaining the live bait so that the bait may be easily selected without putting one's hand and forearm into the water.
Unfortunately, it generally takes two hands to manipulate bait buckets of this kind in order to retrieve one's bait. The inner housing must be lifted or otherwise manipulated with one hand, while the bait is retrieved with the other hand. If the angler has a fishing rod to hold with one hand, it generally needs to be put down in order to select the bait.
Accordingly, a need exists for a bait bucket which can be easily manipulated with a single hand in order to select and remove live bait without putting one's forearm into the water in an attempt to capture the bait. The present invention provides a solution to this and other problems and offers other advantages over the prior art, and solves other problems associated therewith.